discussion Help needed to OC i7 950

[rjbarker]

Yep.....and read lots of info available on these Forums and others.....stability testing is the most time consuming part!! change one settng n stability test...chnage another and stability test..yada yada yada...look for the highest possible OC with the lowest possible Voltages (keeping heat in check)....
Use 10 -15 passes of LinX (Max Memory) ((All)) to initially test OC....
Once you've found your highest OC you want to go to...then test it hard, I prefer
1. P95 Small FFT and
2. P95 Blend
Each of the above for a min of 8 - 12 hrs

Remember..Google is your friend...have fun!!!

 

[ddee]

Hi guys what's up? After days of trial i can safely say.. IT'S A DISASTER:doh: I didn't think i could OC all the way to 4ghz on the first try.. But still.. I can't get it stable after a week of tweaking! And i did really try my best to understand the guides. The problem is that the terminology they used doesn't completely match with my MoBo bios settings(Asus P6X58D-E). Maybe it's me but i'm really confused right now. So please can somebody with the same MoBo/cpu point in me in the right direction please? What settings do you use? Perhaps i can use a good starting point and tweak it to work on my rig. :thumb:

On a side note so far i did understand that intel speed step and turbo boost are better turned off when overclocking(possibly HT too). I've loaded the default settings. Entered the bios, gradually upped the bclk to 175 and when win didn't boot or crashed i upped the vcore to a max of 1.3. Now i don't know about the other voltage settings. And i have no clue on how to oc the ram as the cpu oc alone it's already complicated as it is. Please help!

 

[Xeven]

How about starting with this? Just load defaults and change values to the following. You can then gradually adjust the CPU Voltage if it's unstable. Set the DRAM voltage to auto for the time being as well, it's running at 1400 Mhz anyhow.

Good luck.

 

[ddee]

Thanks a lot for sharing your settings man! The OC did work for like 15 min then BOSD. The only way to get it stable, like you suggested, was to increase the core voltage to 1.3125V. Now i'm concerned that might be too high. What do you think? The weird thing is that my core voltage default value isn't 1.250.. Is like 1.290.. Is this normal? I did try to load the default settings and it went back to 1.290.. Weird.. Anyway with your help and another dude who posted a video on you tube my 4.05 ghz rig stable(touching wood:rofl. While i didn't have the time to test it extensively, i did 1h of intel burn test(maximun setting), battlefield BC2 for another hour, encoding some videos for my ipad.. Not a single crash! Temperatures are ranging from 40-45(idle) to 60-75 under max load. How does it sounds? What temps do you guys have?

Here are my settings:

- 176 blk
- x23 multiplier
- 1.3125V core voltage
- x12 memory multiplier
- 1.6V memory voltage
- 1.4V uncore voltage
- x24 uncore multiplier
- x36 QPI multiplier

What's IOH voltage @ 1.20V? I've got like the stock 1.00V.. Is it ok? Like i said the system seem stable and i don't wanna mess things up, but i really don't know IF i'm doing the right thing pushing all those voltages up! Oh, and what about the ram? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanxxx a milion.

 

[Xeven]

VID at 1.3125V is ok. For IOH auto is ok as well, as long as it "works". I'd reduce the uncore voltage to 1.35V if possible though. Temps look ok, what HSF are you using?

 

[rjbarker]

1hr of IBT doesn't cut the mustard for me when testing.....again:
1. P95 Small FFT 8 hrs followed by
2. P95 Blend 8 hrs

You get through those final tests your golden

 

[Video_freak]

I don't know how you are doing this, but typically you find your target base clock and corresponding QPI voltage while keeping the memory and CPU on low multipliers to leave them out of the equation. Then you move onto memory and finally the CPU itself.

Also, you don't need to worry about reaching too high of a CPU voltage at this level, what really matters are the temps. To me, yours seem a little high, especially if you are using the main CPU temp reading from the heatspreader vs. one of the cores.

PS Just to give you an example, I'm using the same 950 at 4.2 GHz and mine needs 1.29-1.3v after the vdroop effect in order to pass stress testing. The hottest core hovers around the high 60s C under a NH-D14. This is a little on the high side (to me) but the ambient temp happened to be around 80 F and that usually isn't the case, so just find something that keeps your temps in that range or lower. Also, I'd recommend turning some power saving features back on after you've stabilized in order to lower the voltage and CPU multiplier/temp while it isn't under load.

 

[ddee]

VID at 1.3125V is ok. For IOH auto is ok as well, as long as it "works". I'd reduce the uncore voltage to 1.35V if possible though. Temps look ok, what HSF are you using?

Ehy man, I've reduced the uncore voltage to 1.35V and i'm still rocking BFBC 2 after 4hours!!Thanks:thumb:
I use hyper 212 from cooler master. I think it's pretty decent for the price!

I don't have a clue about the ram oc though.. What you think about the memory multiplier, uncore multiplier and memory voltage i'm using?

 

[ddee]

1hr of IBT doesn't cut the mustard for me when testing.....again:
1. P95 Small FFT 8 hrs followed by
2. P95 Blend 8 hrs

You get through those final tests your golden

Agreed. I will run p95 all night and report back tomorrow. I don't know if it count but today I've playing dead rising 2 and BFBC 2 for a few hours w/o a single crash. I upped the blk as well to 177 and it's still stable. I can cross the 180 line w/o upping the voltage.. forgggetabbboutttit:doh:

 

[ddee]

I don't know how you are doing this, but typically you find your target base clock and corresponding QPI voltage while keeping the memory and CPU on low multipliers to leave them out of the equation. Then you move onto memory and finally the CPU itself

Piece of cake:biggrin: Thats what I've been trying to figure out for the last month!! Thanks for the clarification:thumb:

[/QUOTE]To me, yours seem a little high, especially if you are using the main CPU temp reading from the heatspreader vs. one of the cores.[/QUOTE]

I see your point. But if use a lower voltage everything else go :funky: Meaning windows crash or won't even boot sometimes. I can get my head around it tho.. Any suggestion?

[/QUOTE]Also, I'd recommend turning some power saving features back on after you've stabilized in order to lower the voltage and CPU multiplier/temp while it isn't under load.[/QUOTE]

This is a great advice. I did enable speedstep/c state back and the temperatures are a few degrees lower when idle, which doesn't hurt. I will try to back up with my blck to 175 and my voltage at 1.3 and see what happen. I'm also thinking to switch HT off maybe that's the reason why my temps are a little
high. During intense gaming with two oced 460 GTX i have around 70. I thought it wasn't that bad:doh: On the intel burn test i went up to 80 tho:shok: